ROME, July 23 (Reuters) - Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who will visit the White House on Thursday, said that U.S. President Joe Biden had never challenged her on the issue of Rome being part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Meloni leads the only major Western country to have joined China’s BRI scheme, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending.

  • OptimusPrimeDownfall@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    It’s all a way for the CCP to gain power over other countries. “Oh, you’re using OUR infrastructure, you need to do X thing that’s bad for you or we will turn it off/fuck you over with it”.

    The CCP cannot be trusted.

    • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Too bad the tankies here refuse to hear a single bad word about the CCP, with some even making this sound like ‘Trumptard fear-mongering’.

      In reality, the BRI has shaped up to be little more than debt-trap diplomacy, powered by bribes to influential politicians (borderline autocrats) who’re willing to sell their countries for a dime.

      • Usermane@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I actually believe that those countries decided to take Chinese loans after becoming weary of IMF ones. The latter come with a lot of strings attached that force said countr8toalign with wester ideals and economic doctrines such as privatization of industries and services as well as social reforms. It is actually not too far off from how colonisers would push the colonies to become ‘civilized’. The west as always thinks it knows better and must push the ‘uneducated’ countries in the right direction. The Chinese offered an alternative where the loan recipients are allowed to develop the way they see fits them best. They are not looking to mold new countries in their image, just create economically strong trading partners that may see them more positively that they see the west. In the future that may allow them to contrast the western countries in geopolitical strength. TL;DR: China is actually hoping that these countries develop into strong economies that are aligned with China rather than with the USA.

    • Dojan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s no such thing as a perfect government, and there’s certainly things the CCP does that I’m not a fan of. That said, China’s overall rising standard of living, and incredible infrastructure that’s all popped up in the past couple of decades has me really impressed. Attempting an international infrastructure project like this is super interesting, to me at least.

    • lemmyshmemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah. China suddenly owns a bunch of African ports and other infrastructure because they overloaded countries with debt.